Established in 2002 through a $1 million pledge from SMU Trustee Gerald J. Ford, the fellowships help the University retain and reward outstanding scholars. Each recipient receives a cash prize for research support during the year.

Read more about this year’s recipients under the link.

(Above, the new Ford Research Fellows were honored by the SMU Board of Trustees during its May meeting (left to right): Brent Sumerlin, Jaime Clark-Soles, Daniel Millimet and Ernie Jouriles. Photo by Hillsman S. Jackson.)

Jaime Clark-Soles, associate professor of New Testament in Perkins School of Theology, is recognized nationally and internationally as an interpreter of the gospel of John. She studies themes of suffering, death and the afterlife in the Christian tradition. An ordained minister in the American Baptist Church, she has conducted scholarship under grants from Louisville Seminary’s Louisville Institute and Wabash College’s Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Her published monograph “Death and the Afterlife in the New Testament” is required reading at many colleges and seminaries. Currently, Clark-Soles has two books in progress – the first of which, tentatively titled The Active Word: New Testament Studies and the Christian Believer, will be published by Westminster John Knox Press.

Ernest Jouriles, chair of the Department of Psychology in Dedman College, focuses his research on family violence, especially its effect on children. He is principal or co-investigator on grants totaling almost $1.5 million, has written 48 peer-reviewed articles and given 35 invited lectures. He is associate editor of the Journal of Family Psychology and sits on the editorial boards of other top journals. Under Jouriles’ chairmanship, the Department of Psychology has seen a fourfold increase in sponsored research since 2002 and a doubling in the output of published articles. Currently, he is working to develop procedures to remediate harmful long-term effects of violent family environments on the children who grow up in them. He also has begun to apply principles from clinical and cognitive psychology to curb dangerous drinking behaviors among college students.

Daniel Millimet, professor of economics in Dedman College, is a researcher in applied econometrics focusing on the economics of the environment and of schooling. He has published nearly 50 peer-reviewed journal articles since 2000 and contributed chapters to 7 edited volumes. He won (with co-author John List of the University of Chicago) the 2008 Kenneth J. Arrow Prize for Senior Economists for his paper “The Market: Catalyst for Rationality and Filter of Irrationality,” published in Frontiers of Economic Analysis and Policy. He also serves as director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Economics. Currently, Millimet is researching the impact of U.S.-Canada trade on pollution, as well as the effects of two large federal programs – the school meal program and the food stamp program – on childhood obesity and student achievement.

Brent Sumerlin, associate professor of chemistry in Dedman College, focuses his research on the design and creation of new macromolecular structures, including polymers for use in applications as diverse as medicine and construction. The applications of his work include polymers that both detect high glucose levels in the blood stream and release insulin, which could help free diabetics from a daily injection schedule. He holds 6 patents and has written 37 peer-reviewed articles. Sumerlin received a National Science Foundation Early Career Award in 2008 and was named an “Emerging Investigator” by the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Soft Matter in 2009. Earlier this year, he was named a 2010-2012 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. More than 30 Sloan Research Fellows have won Nobel Prizes later in their careers.